That’s because they needed the copper for bullet jackets during WWII. So they salvaged copper pennies and replaced them with zinc ones. It had nothing to do with the price of copper back then and they made no attempt to fake the copper color on the pennies like they do now.
My Dad worked for Dow Chemicals during that time producing war critical chemicals without which we would have LOST the war. Dow had a lot of copper bus bars for the electrical current required to refine magnesium (which was known as “Dow Metal” back then) which was used for airplane parts because of its light weight. The war effort NEEDED those copper bus bars for the same reason (bullet jackets) so they REPLACED them with solid SILVER bus bars made from silver from Fort Knox’s stockpile! The silver bus bars were guarded by the Army while they were in place at Dow!
You refine magnesium by electroplating it out of a salt solution the same way you refine aluminum.
That’s because they needed the copper for bullet jackets during WWII. So they salvaged copper pennies and replaced them with zinc ones. It had nothing to do with the price of copper back then and they made no attempt to fake the copper color on the pennies like they do now.
My Dad worked for Dow Chemicals during that time producing war critical chemicals without which we would have LOST the war. Dow had a lot of copper bus bars for the electrical current required to refine magnesium (which was known as “Dow Metal” back then) which was used for airplane parts because of its light weight. The war effort NEEDED those copper bus bars for the same reason (bullet jackets) so they REPLACED them with solid SILVER bus bars made from silver from Fort Knox’s stockpile! The silver bus bars were guarded by the Army while they were in place at Dow!
You refine magnesium by electroplating it out of a salt solution the same way you refine aluminum.